Headlines like “Vlad
Putin Wins Again,”“The new Ukrainian peace deal may be
worse than no deal at all,” or “Why Is Putin Smiling
About Ukraine?” and the likes are all over the US
media.

Never mind that the Minsk Agreement offers at least a brief,
fragile window of opportunity for the world to step back from the
brink of a nuclear confrontation that would destroy the entire
northern hemisphere of the earth. If nothing else, at least it
could save some Ukrainian lives. But who cares?

Such negative reactions from US policymakers and media are
understandable since the whole Ukrainian mess was concocted to
fulfill the ultimate goal of Russia’s geopolitical weakening and
Putin’s regime change under the noble banner of spreading freedom
and democracy. So far this goal is far from an achievement so why
give peace a chance?

The saddest part of this story is that such a policy totally
contradicts US long-term strategic security interests by turning
a potential important ally into adversary.

It did not have to be that way. After the collapse of Communism
and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, both Russian elites
and the overwhelming majority of the Russian people were ready to
join the family of the Western alliance. It was President George
Herbert Walker Bush who talked in 1990 about a “Europe whole
and free,” and the new “security arch from Vancouver to
Vladivostok.”

Yes, there is no written document confirming his often-quoted
pledge to Gorbachev not to expand NATO to the East but there are
many credible and trustworthy witnesses who present compelling
evidence testifying to Washington’s reneging on key oral
commitments to Moscow.

According to then-US Ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, who took
part in both the Bush-Gorbachev early-December 1989 summit in
Malta and the Shevardnadze-Baker discussions in early February
1990: “The language used was absolute, and the entire
negotiation was in the framework of a general agreement that
there would be no use of force by the Soviets and no ‘taking
advantage’ by the US … I don’t see how anybody could view the
subsequent expansion of NATO as anything but ‘taking advantage,’
particularly since, by then, Russia was hardly a credible
threat.”

There are other reliable witnesses to these historical events.
And there is no doubt that it was Bill Clinton and his
administration that made the sharp turn from the movement, albeit
slow, towards an US – Russia alliance, to deep division and the
current dangerous state of affairs.

George Kennan, one of the most distinguished of American
diplomats, later told the New York Times he believed the
expansion of NATO was “the beginning of a new cold war…I
think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this
whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion
would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in
their graves.''

Some 19 US Senators, including John Ashcroft (R-MO), Tom Harkin
(D-IA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Daniel Patrick
Moynihan (D-NY), Harry Reid (D-NV), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and John
Warner (R-VA) voted against the bill permitting the expansion of
NATO. Some of them said the expansion would “dilute NATO's
self-defense mission, antagonize Russia, jeopardize several
Russian-American arms-control negotiations and draw a new
dividing line - a new Iron Curtain - across Europe.”

''We'll be back on a hair-trigger,'' said Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, warning that enlargement
would threaten much worse than a new cold war. ''We're
talking about nuclear war.''

This relentless record of broken promises continued when Russia
was ravaged by economic crisis through the 1990s. This was a
direct result of the catastrophic crash privatization urged on it
by the Clinton team when Russia’s population shrank disastrously
and the hardship of ordinary folks was comparable to what they
had experienced during World War II.

Russia’s unexpected recovery in the 2000s from this total
devastation caught its antagonists by surprise, but George W.
Bush and Barack Obama followed the same failed Clinton policies
by continuing NATO expansion, unleashing “color
revolutions” on former Soviet republics from Ukraine and
Georgia to Kyrgyzstan. Under their reckless leads, the United
States pressed to break historical and economic ties between
Russia and Ukraine going back many centuries using the same
slogans of promoting Western values.

The Ukrainian people have not benefited from this policy which
the February 2014 violent coup in Kiev and the openly manipulated
sham of a democratic election then imposed upon them. The new
rump government of President Petro Poroshenko first accepted an
association agreement with the European Union under terms certain
to impoverish scores of millions of Ukrainians. It has nothing to
do with helping Ukraine's economic development but only dangles
mythical carrots of unlimited Western aid that neither the US nor
the EU in reality have the resources to provide.

Finally, some European leaders are slowly coming to their senses.
Merkel and Hollande rightly want to retreat from the brink and
such conservative-right leaders like former President Nicolas
Sarkozy and National Front leader Marine Le Pen have both made
clear their own determination to reestablish good ties with
Moscow.

Yet in Washington, the only voices allowed to be heard in the
mainstream media unanimously call for the rapid arming of Ukraine
as quickly and recklessly as possible. Arch-hawk Sen. John McCain
(R-Ariz) is predictably in the forefront of this pack, yet
incredibly President Obama has allowed senior figures in his own
administration and the top US generals to encourage such madness
too.

During the most dangerous periods of the Cold War, the dangers
were fully realized by the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan
administrations. However, there is not the slightest hint of such
awareness and responsibility among US policymakers today, either
among the incumbent Democrats or the opposition Republicans, who
are trying to outdo each other by competing who is more hawkish
on Russia. Needless to say that America needs a drastic change in
its foreign policy.

There are a few wise men who can make a significant contribution
to this cause; one is former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev,
the man who did more than any other single person to end the Cold
War. He must come to Washington and meet with the surviving
veterans of the Reagan and George Bush, Sr. administrations he
worked so courageously and constructively with back in the 1980s.
Together, their voices desperately need to be heard to revive the
severed lines of communication between Washington and Moscow and
start the process of bringing the world back from the brink of
nuclear destruction.

The huge experience and unmatched diplomatic skills of such
Americans as George Herbert Walker Bush, Henry Kissinger, James
A. Baker III, Brent Scowcroft, Jack Matlock, Pat Buchanan, David
Stockman, Dana Rohrabacher and some others make them the obvious
partners to take seats at the round table with Gorby.

It is not too late for the voices of reason and sanity to be
heard. But the alarms on the Doomsday Clock are already ringing.

Edward Lozansky and
Martin Sieff for RT.

Edward Lozansky is
President of the American University in Moscow and head of the
US-Russia Forum. He is a former Soviet nuclear
scientist

Martin Sieff is a
senior fellow of the American University in Moscow. He is the
former Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Washington
Times.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.